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Tag Archives: SXSW

One of the advantages I’ve found with the social web are the unique opportunities to connect with people with a similar passion. I’ve started following Scott Stratten, also known as @UnMarketing, a while ago but really started getting to know him once I heard he was coming to Detroit for his UnBook Tour on September 28th during the monthly meeting for Social Media Club Detroit.

The following interview happened during South by Southwest earlier this year. Scott responds to the following:

How can you tell a marketing campaign was successful?

How do views on a video translate into sales?

What can you do to get people to pay attention these days?

What’s the craziest thing you’ve done in the spirit of UnMarketing?

I completely agree with his thoughts (big surprise) on the value of building relationships, setting objectives to measure success, and having fun and being personable.

If you are at all interested in “what’s next” in the social web, then you have to begin to investigate tools like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Brightkite. These location based technologies provide an INFINITE amount of data that can be analyzed and used to connect with consumers. The video (from Simple Geo Inc.) below was presented by Ken Burbary (@kenburbary) on Saturday of Future Midwest 2010. It visually shows all “check ins” from this year’s SXSW in Austin, TX.

More to come. In the meantime, this was eye opening for me and how data and analytics can provide the framework for a strategic social web strategy.

The SXSW (South by Southwest) Conference in Austin just wrapped up on March 21st and some of the highlights are starting to make their way onto YouTube. I came across Gary Vaynerchuk‘s (@garyvee) presentation from this year and my mind got to thinking about how powerful the consumer is.

In his talk, Gary said that we (consumers) now have an audience through tools like Twitter and Facebook. We have a voice and people are actually willing to listen to us. They care about what we have to say otherwise they wouldn’t be our “followers” or “friends”. As an example, most of you know I’ve been doing P90X for over 2 months now. I can’t tell you how many times people on Facebook and Twitter have asked me, “does it work?” or “is it worth it?”. My answer in all cases was “YES” and I’ve convinced people to buy it and do it! Now if you work at Beachbody (the company that created it), you love this type of word of mouth endorsement.

Gary goes on to say that we all are in the customer service business. I completely agree. If you are using Twitter and Facebook to market to consumers (I’m guilty of that) then you’re missing the basic principle of why these tools are in place to begin with. Maybe I should re-read my post, “It’s all about relationships.” If brands begin to care about their customers, then that’s a big deal. Think Zappos. Think Best Buy. These companies get it.

Now the question I have is this…can an automotive company do it? Are Buick and GMC too big to take an interest in their customers? Some may say “yes.” I say “who cares, why don’t we try?” In the beginning of Gary’s speech he says he is most interested in DOING the things we say we AREN’T going to do because that’s where the opportunity is. I’ve said this before…there are no second chances for us as a company. It’s time to do things differently because what we did before didn’t work. We need to think differently, act differently and just try. Try new things. We won’t know until we just try.

What do you think? Is it possible for Buick and GMC to change perceptions by focusing on the customer?

“People need to start caring or they are going to lose.” ~ Gary Vaynerchuk, SXSW 2010